LAHORE, Oct 30: The Punjab Health Department has chalked out a plan in collaboration with the other provinces to check inter-provincial cross-border polio transmission.

The department has decided to recruit 92 vaccinators to post them at 16 inter-provincial cross-borders to vaccinate the children up to five travelling by trains, buses and other modes of transport. The project is being funded by Unicef.

The decision was taken at a meeting of anti-polio vaccination programme managers from all the four provinces. The meeting was chaired by provincial director-general health services Dr. Yaqoob Jaffar.

Talking to Dawn, Dr Jaffar said the children visiting inter-provincial cross-border areas were not being vaccinated properly. He said eight wild polio virus cases were reported from cross-border areas.

He said the 92 vaccinators would be recruited next week and given training to start vaccination at 16 check posts. The check posts would be established at cross-borders in Attock, Rawalpindi, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Sadiqabad, Rahim Yar Khan, Khanpur, Kahuta, Kahuta bridge, Bhimber, Abbotabad, Taxila, Rahim Yar Khan (Guddu Barrage) and Dera Ismail Khan (Chashma Barrage).

Meanwhile, the Health Department is starting its three-day national immunization campaign from Nov 6.